By Dan Ambrose: Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions believes he’s got boxing’s number one star in WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) in his Golden Boy stable, and he’s already crowning the Mexican as the top fighter in the sport without even having bothered to match him against the best fighter at 160 in Gennady “GGG” Golovkin or the top fighter at 154 in IBF champion Jermall Charlo.
Canelo still needs to beat those guy, and he also must prove that he’s better than tonight’s bulked up opponent Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs), who Canelo will be facing on HBO pay-per-view from the 20,000 seat T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Khan will need to fight the perfect fight to beat Canelo because he’s not going to be able to stand in the pocket and trade with him. That would be a big mistake on Khan’s part if he makes that mistake. But at the same time, Khan can’t just move around the ring all night long and expect to be given a decision win against Canelo because the judges will automatically give rounds to Canelo based on him being the aggressor in the fight.
De La Hoya feels he’s got the next Floyd Mayweather Jr. in his Golden Boy stable in Canelo, and he’s not afraid to let everyone know about it. Khan has something to say about being overlooked by De La Hoya and seen as the sacrificial lamb by fans. Khan has bulked up to the low 160s, and he’s never looked better in his life.
We could seeing an improved version of Miguel Cotto tonight, and if that’s the case, Canelo will be losing for the second time in his career. De La Hoya and Golden Boy may have made a mistake in choosing Khan and not realizing his potential of bulking up and fighting at middleweight. There’s some that feel that Khan has hurt his own career by having to drain down to fight at welterweight the last few years, when he should have already moved up to middleweight to fight at a weight that was more conducive to his body size.
“At the tender age of 25, he [Canelo] has generated huge numbers,” said De La Hoya top ESPN.com. “Huge ratings. He has filled arena with 40,000-plus people. It’s not only his looks, it’s not only his exciting style. It has to do with the fact that he brings in the female fans as well. That’s a huge plus for any sport and the last many to do it was yours truly,” said De La Hoya.
I think De La Hoya is really working himself up here in talking about Canelo in such glowing terms. We are talking about a fighter that lost to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013, and who was given a very questionable decision victory over Erislandy Lara in 2014 in a fight in which Canelo landed only 31 head shots. He was missing punches all night long and eating jabs and right hands from Lara. We’re also talking about a fighter in Canelo who appears to be ducking the Golovkin fight by hiding out at a weight class that he’s created at 155, which is neither middleweight nor junior middleweight.
Canelo has changed the sport of boxing with his catch-weight fights, and his ability to use his popularity to get his opponents to fight at this weight. We’re going to see how powerful Canelo is if he can beat Khan and use his popularity to coerce Golovkin to melt down to 155 so that he can get an advantage over him.
Canelo’s promoter Bernard Hopkins feels that there’s no rush for a Canelo vs. Golovkin fight. Hopkins feels that the fight should take place when the time is right, whenever that is. At 34, Golovkin can’t wait until he’s 50 to fight Canelo. He needs to take the fight now while he’s still in his prime.
“I think the fights going to happen, but I think the fights going to happen based on everybody on both sides having to have a real commitment to have both sides feel like they’re respected and no one is getting the advantage over the other one,” Hopkins said about a Golovkin vs. Canelo fight. “Whether it’s five pounds or six pounds or whether it’s four pounds; at the end of the day, Canelo has to feel comfortable at his weight, and Triple G has to feel comfortable. At the end of the day, who is the star? The star is Canelo. In the history of boxing, who earns the star and who earns the numbers? Floyd Mayweather is gone for right now. We know right now that Canelo, to me, when it comes to superstar, is the guy in boxing. Who can fight on Cinco de Mayo? Every fighter can’t fight and have that Cinco de Mayo date and in September. That should say itself who right now is the guy to build that stardom to super credibility when the time comes, when the time gets down the line when he fights the best fights. He carries the love and that fanfare in that weight division that can bring in a lot of great matches. If you take Triple G out of the way, I think there’s a lot of great matches in the middleweight and junior middleweight divisions. That division is really hot, and better than my division when I was there,” said Hopkins.
Hopkins sounds like he’s not ready to let Canelo fight Golovkin judging by his rambling comments. If you decipher what Hopkins is saying, it sounds like he feels there’s good fights for Canelo and that he doesn’t need Golovkin.
Golovkin isn’t too happy with the way Canelo feels he needs to fight at 155, and he sees it as bad for the sport of boxing.
“I’m excited to attend the Canelo v Khan fight to witness this great matchup of size and power vs. speed and movement,” said Golovkin to IFL TV.
Golovkin said this about Canelo’s comments about him needing to earn a fight against him by facing better opposition, “it’s terrible. This is not respect.”
As for the Canelo-Khan fight, Golovkin believes Canelo is too big for Khan, and he doesn’t like the fight.
“I think Canelo is too big and too strong,” Golovkin said to Fighthub about Canelo being too big for Khan. “This is not respecting boxing. It doesn’t matter if it’s Team Canelo or Oscar. I’m not angry. I see Golden Boy’s job. This is terrible. This is not respect,” said Golovkin.
Khan can act in the role of a spoiler tonight against Canelo. No one is expecting anything of Khan, and he can definitely pull off a big surprise if he comes into this fight and is able to use movement and speed to out-box Canelo in the same way that Mayweather did three years ago. If Khan is stronger tonight than he’s been in the past and still possesses his blazing fast foot and hand speed, then Canelo could be in deep trouble. Canelo’s feet are slow and he cannot handle speed of foot.
A loss for Canelo won’t be fatal though, because he’d still have millions of fans in the U.S that would continue to back him. But a loss to Khan would mean that Golden Boy would need to double down on their careful match-making for Canelo. They might need to continue to comb through the welterweight division to find smaller guys for Canelo to powerful power with his size, because it would be too risky to put him in with guys his own size at middleweight like Daniel Jacobs, Golovkin, Peter Quillin, Chris Eubank Jr., Andy Lee or Billy Joe Saunders.